In seeking to knock this article into shape over the weekend I had ‘wrestled’ with some interesting captions for same as they kept on ‘disturbing’ my peace of mind. Some titles like Dino: The Limit Of Legislative Lunacy. Or, Dino: The ‘NASSty’ Sexual Predator Or better still, Dino: The Making Of A Legislative Reprobate. As they crossed my mind competing for attention as it were it became obvious that the subject deserved less respect and more opprobrium than say, the jailed Lucky Idahosa in Benin city, Edo state, who incestuously had a carnal knowledge of his 17-year old daughter in order to become rich overnight by ritual means! Or the beast(s) that reportedly ‘deflowered’ a little virgin-girl of five years recently in Kanke local government area of Plateau state putting her in a family way in the process! Both of which abominably deserved some mention in the Guinness book of world records!
Senator Dino Melaye represents Kogi West Senatorial District in the Senate of the Nigerian national assembly. He is not a boy but a man aged 42 or thereabout. Before becoming a controversial politician he was once a hypocritical human rights activist and campaigner of democracy. And before ‘graduating’ to become a Senator he was in the lower House where he made a name for himself by fighting on the floor of the house in defense of the former Speaker Patricia Etteh. He was battered and bloodied by those physically more imposing and more powerful than him even though none of them could ever have claimed to be a Mike Tyson or Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee! Nor could any of those undesirable legislative elements involved in the fracas for/against the beautician have qualified for any role in the American hard-hitting film, No Holds Barred, featuring Hulk Hogan and the imposing black beast named Zeus.
The controversies trailing Dino tend to lend credence to the saying that any sudden acquisition of stupendous wealth, if not controlled, could make one mad or expose the lunacy inhabiting the inner recess of such nouveaux riché. Melaye could very well have been made mad by both power and money and today he could dance naked on the market square to further his notoriety. The Kogi jolly man may have been equating this notoriety and nuisance to some achievement of some sort if not greatness itself. But the truth is that he has accomplished nothing worth reporting other than escorting Saraki’s wife to court for her trial for fraud and removing a tatoo bearing the name of his estranged wife! And operating a foreign bank account in clear contravention of the Senate rules and regulations.
The more he instigates any trouble or makes some noise the more his popularity rating soars in his infantile imagination. Like the rogue Governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, who advertised his pedigree as a former retired Danfo driver before joining the political train Dino could, as well, have been an auto mechanic before furthering his education and dabbling into politics Nigeriana. That is if we are to believe the university degree in his CV is not the ‘Jankara’ or ‘Oluwole’ version. After all, this is the same Nigeria where a Salisu Buhari (former deposed House Speaker) had almost succeeded in fooling us with a Toronto University degree he must have obtained or bought anywhere but in Canada!
Recently Dino Melaye was in the news for bad reasons once again. He was reported widely to have verbally assaulted Senator Oluremi Tinubu, the wife of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who represents Lagos Central Senatorial District. He threatened to beat her up and impregnate her declaring that nothing would happen if such an act took place! He even went as far as telling her arrogantly that there was no Bourdillon Street in Abuja where her husband, Tinubu the godfather in Lagos, held court. And in a demonstration of his challenge to the Tinubus he had recently tweeted of his visit to Bourdillon in Ikoyi Lagos and posted online photos he took while perambulating in the neighbourhood unmolested! No one knows what the Lion of Bourdillon made of the rascality taken to an extreme level but those who know the former Lagos Governor were not surprised at his decision to leave an over-fed mad man manifest his madness alone on the street.
The problem with Dino is that he is not man enough! A responsible man would have had a household where a wife and children would hold sway — sharing some good and bad moments with Daddy and darling. Marriage is what defines a real man and bearing children shapes his destiny. But his wife-beating antics and litany of divorces has given him away as an irresponsible animal who appreciates less the value of women and what marriage is all about. While Dino is wildly associated with misogyny, the showing off, the theatrics, the greed, the lustfulness, the wife-battering it is ludicrous for him to bring the issue of sex and menopause into the matter. His current blind fanatical support of the Sarakis including acting as a bodyguard to Saraki’s wife in her court appearances ought to interrogate the marital conscience of the Senate President.
While some APC politicians and women groups from Lagos and some gender equality advocates had risen in condemnation of Dino and in support of Remi our beefy Kogi man had resorted to hiring some market women and jobless prostitutes in Lokoja and elsewhere to demonstrate in his support asking Senator Remi to apologise to Dino for calling him a ‘dog’ and a ‘thug’! Pray, was she not right in calling him a dog and a thug? Has Dino not acted worse than a thug or a dog in the past? Wonders shall never end in Nigeria. He was desperate to equalise the ‘trend’ in a nation where all manner of clowns and comedians occupy positions meant for the well-bred and well-read class.
As the national outcry grew over the Dino/Tinubu row the Kogi man told a press conference that “It is fallacious, malicious and a lie that I said I will impregnate Remi Tinubu. Biologically it is even impossible to impregnate her because she has arrived at menopause”! For him Madam Tinubu had crossed the ‘red’ line of menopause at 55 so he publicly declared his amorous preference for Stella Oduah! Pray, so it is now up to Dino Melaye to tell us who is still gynaecologically seeing ‘red’ and who sees ‘green’? Dino, the morally-debauched ambitious man that wants to be President of Nigeria, urgently needs some psychiatric help for his marital woes and obvious frustrations.
Dino had clashed with the Comrade Governor Oshiomhole of Edo State over his beautiful imported ‘foreign wife’ from Cape Verde Island. He had mockingly ‘advised’ the Comrade to consider paying dowries not in Dollars but in the local currency of Naira. The charismatic Adams had fired back via a statement calling Dino names and accusing him of bestial behaviour. Gov. Oshiomhole is not one to be taken for granted so he swiftly put Dino in his place by hitting him well below the belt.
For Dino Melaye Nigeria could very well be compared to a jungle where dogs and thugs could marry wives and divorce them at will, beat them up at their convenient times and even ‘eye’ other people’s wives with disdain. But he must be told that the new emerging Nigeria of our dreams would not accommodate such deviant animals without any honour. His constituency ought to do the needful now by recalling him before more damage is done.
